


Illusions

by Mareel



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Companionable Snark, Established Relationship, M/M, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mareel/pseuds/Mareel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asric and Jadaar find that they finally have to drop some of their delusions about their relationship as they move on from Northrend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illusions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nagaina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nagaina/gifts).



> Written for Nagaina, who requested an Asric/Jadaar story relating to the prompt ’I don’t want to be friends’. This story spans the time period between the fall of the Lich King and the early months following the discovery of Pandaria.

 

_I have great faith in fools - my friends call it self-confidence._ – Edgar Allan Poe

 

“What are you two still doing here?”

It was a fair question, though something of a startling one, coming as it did from another more or less permanent resident of the Argent Tournament encampment in Icecrown. Fhyron Shadesong had been making his rounds of the grounds since before either Jadaar or his friend Asric had found their way there more than two years ago. 

While Jadaar considered his reply, Asric waved to Tingiyok and nodded toward Shadesong. “A drink for our druid friend here, and another round for us.” There was no need to specify whom the ‘us’ might refer to – they were regulars here and the old tuskarr knew their drink orders… and kept a running tab. 

Fhyron hesitated a moment before nodding his assent. Apparently his preferences were a matter of record as well because he had no opportunity to place an order before a mug of warm spiced wine was placed in his hands. He wrapped his long fingers around it, seeming to savour the warmth before taking a sip. “Thank you,” he said to the barkeep, but his raised mug also included Asric and Jadaar in his gratitude. 

“I could ask you the same, Fhyron. This place has become a ghost camp since Highlord Fordring decamped for the Eastern Kingdoms and most of the heroes left with him.” Jadaar took a deep draught of his ale, and then continued. “I presume the Champions and Valiants stay to train the young ones who occasionally make their way here… or they’ve no taste for the wars brewing to the south.” He added more softly, almost to himself, “or they’ve grown attached to those who’d be their enemies anywhere else…”

“I stay to tend the trees,” Fhyron replied. “They know nothing of heroes and battles and the defeat of the Lich King. They stand against the cold and the wind and the snow, and need continued encouragement if they are to thrive here. This will not always be a place of war.” He sighed, taking another sip of wine. “If Assina so wills it, this will one day be a forest again.” He looked first at Asric, then to Jadaar. “But you have not answered my question. What could keep you here?”

Jadaar glanced at Asric, judging how much of the truth he should reveal. He trusted the ageless druid who seemed to have no enemies beyond the elements that assailed his precious trees. “In truth? I don’t know. I’m not sure where else we could go…” He stopped, realizing how he had phrased that, and corrected himself. “Where else I could go.” Asric, surprisingly, came to his rescue, adding, “Or I… there is no one clamouring for my services. That hotheaded young Warchief has no love for my people. He considers us all to be weaklings. He’s no Thrall, for certain, and I’m in no hurry to offer him my blade or my fealty.”

Fhyron nodded, his eyes on his mug. “I’ve heard the same. But Jadaar, surely the Alliance could use someone with your experience. King Varian must have draenei among his advisors.” He paused, but there was no reply from Jadaar. “Or do you perhaps prefer to be posted together?”

Jadaar drew a sharp breath and turned to see Asric’s reaction. To his surprise, the blood elf was laughing as he replied. “Of course we do, druid. I doubt I could find my way home after a night’s drinking without Jadaar to show the way.” 

The light tone did little to conceal the traces of bitterness in his friend’s voice. Jadaar felt a twinge of guilt about that, about not agreeing more strongly with Fhyron’s suggestion… since it was the truth. He tried to make what amends he could, here in public, and promised himself he’d do better when they were alone together. “You’re right, it would be my preference to continue serving with Asric. Despite his propensity for insulting me at every opportunity, I consider him my friend.”

His mug empty, Fhyron slid it back over the counter, and turned to go. “I meant no offense by the question. Your friendship is evident and there is no shame in wanting to pursue it.” He picked up his staff and took a few steps before turning to Asric with his parting words. “You might consider Dalaran again. It’s quiet there these days, I hear, and no one would bother you.”

Heedless of the fact that they were not in private, as soon as the druid had passed beyond earshot, Asric turned to Jadaar with an all too familiar sneer on his lips. “You consider me your _friend_. I’m touched that you admit as much, you pompous prig. Should I be grateful that you didn’t repudiate even that much?”

Jadaar reached for his partner’s shoulder, trying to calm him, unsure of what to say that would make any difference. “Asric… you _are_ my friend, are you not? I saw no need to provide more details in a casual conversation.”

Asric shrugged off the touch, rejecting the contact along with the explanation. “Let me make one thing very clear, draenei. I do not want to be your _friend_.” The last word dripped both irony and vitriol. “If that’s how you see us, after all these years, I need to look elsewhere for companionship.” 

Without waiting for a reply, Asric turned and stalked out of the tent. Jadaar glanced at Tingiyok, who kept his face averted, clearly wanting no part of the quarrel. “I’ll be by to pay the tab later tonight or tomorrow. Have no fear that we’ll skip town with it unpaid. You’ve offered nothing but hospitality as long as we’ve been here.”

Jadaar made his way back to the tent he shared with his companion, but found it empty. Asric’s things were gone, most of them at least. But on his own cot he found the pendant he’d once given his lover. The chain was broken as if it had been torn off rather than unclasped. Jadaar sat heavily, turning the pendant in his hands. The two of them had argued virtually non-stop as long as they’d been together… longer, even. But tonight was different. He was alone now.

____________________________________________________

###  _In Dalaran_

 

“It’s true then. They _do_ allow any sort of riffraff in this fine establishment.” 

Jadaar looked up from his ale to see a familiar face, complete with an even more familiar sneer. “Asric, can’t you leave me be to drink in peace? I thought we were finished after your rather abrupt departure from Icecrown. As you can see, I’ve been busy putting my life back in order and don’t need…”

“Still a pompous windbag, I see.” Asric hailed the barmaid, who seemed surprised to see him. “A glass of Dalaran Red please, Narisa.” 

“Lovely to see you too, Asric… you know how much I’ve missed you,” she said as she delivered his wine. “The place just hasn’t been the same without the two of you bickering.” Ignoring her comments, he raised his glass to the draenei whose tirade he’d interrupted, and proposed a toast. “To old times. Surely you’ll drink to that?”

Jadaar silently raised his own mug a few centimeters above the table. “To old times, then.” They drank in awkward silence as minutes passed, seeing only one or two other people pass by _Cantrips and Crows_ on their way to wherever. Finally, Jadaar broke the silence. “It seems the druid was right. This city _is_ a ghost town. Only the magi and shopkeepers seem to live here now, and very few visitors pass through town.” He raised his eyes to meet Asric’s gaze and asked, quietly. “Why are _you_ here… now? After all these months?”

Asric raised an eyebrow at the question, replying more flippantly than Jadaar was expecting. “All these months? What? You’ve been here waiting to see if I’d come back? You seem very sure of yourself, thinking I would.” He started to get up from the table, but Jadaar’s hand on his stopped him.

“What if I said yes? I’m _not_ saying that, mind you, but what if I did? What if for some completely unfathomable reason, I’d missed you? Missed your insults, your snide observations… and all the rest?”

Asric stared at Jadaar’s hand covering his, but didn’t pull away. Instead he slowly turned his own hand to allow their fingers to clasp. “I’d say you’re a fool, Jadaar, and one who owes me an explanation…” His voice dropped to a lower register and a more intimate tone. “And I seem to have misplaced a piece of jewelry that I wondered if you might have found when you packed up in Icecrown.”

The quickness of Asric’s capitulation, and especially his mention of the pendant, came as a surprise to Jadaar – one he was ill-prepared to hide or gloss over. In truth, he’d expected Asric to pick up the threads of their argument from exactly where they’d been dropped in Icecrown. He’d ever rehearsed lines in his mind about how he would reply to the accusations Asric would hurl at him. That the blood elf seemed to be waiting, his hand clasping Jadaar’s, was completely disconcerting.

But instead of blurting out the first reply that came to mind, he rummaged in a deep pocket of his robe with his free hand. The pendant was there, where he’d always kept it, and he quietly laid it on the table between them. 

After a questioning look from Asric, and an answering nod, the elf lifted the pendant, turning it in his hands. “I see you repaired the chain.”

Jadaar nodded. “I didn’t want you to lose it again, should you ever want to wear it.” He paused a moment before adding. “ _That_ repair was easy… as for the rest…”

Asric nodded, still running his fingers over the small sun crystal set in the center of the pendant. He wasn’t making it easy, but Jadaar hadn’t expected it to be. He drained his mug of ale and cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded strained to his own ears. “I owe you an apology, Asric. You’ve called me a fool, and this time you were right. Not every time, mind you, but you were right to be angry that I continued to deny our relationship even to people we knew well.” 

He saw Asric’s hand tightening around the gift he’d given him when they first became lovers, but he seemed to be waiting to hear more. “I was trying to protect you… and myself if I’m to be bluntly honest… from charges of fraternization with the enemy. I realize now that no one cared, not there in Icecrown, not here in Dalaran. I hurt you, and am sorry for that.”

Asric’s brow lifted more sharply than Jadaar had ever seen it lift. “ _Cross-faction fraternization_? Seriously? Gods, Jadaar, no one would have blinked an eye at that except maybe Garrosh and his orc loyalists.” He paused, then added, “I appear to owe you an apology as well, windbag. I thought you were embarrassed to have a male lover.” 

It was Jadaar’s turn to shoot an incredulous look at his partner. “Why ever would _that_ embarrass me? I’d be far more ashamed of bedding a different woman every night as some of the heroes in Icecrown bragged of doing.”

He caught Narisa’s eye and nodded toward his mug and Asric’s nearly empty wine glass. “Another round, please!”

Their conversation turned to more general topics until Asric pushed his glass aside and lifted the pendant from the table. Handing it to Jadaar, he asked simply, “Would you mind if I were to wear this again? I won’t promise to keep it tucked inside my jerkin though.” Jadaar’s response was to move behind Asric to fasten it around his neck, pointedly leaving the sun crystal to gleam at his partner’s throat. 

After settling their tab with Innkeeper Green, and leaving an unusually generous tip for Narisa, he turned to Asric and asked, “I have a room at the Legerdemain… a bit more privacy than here in the sewers. Will you join me?” 

“Coming up in the world are we?” Asric replied, but his face bore only a trace of a smirk as he followed Jadaar up the ramp toward the inn. “It will be my pleasure.”

____________________________________________________

###  _Tian Monastery, Pandaria_

 

“This…” Jadaar’s expansive gesture encompassed the entirety of their surroundings at the Tian Monastery as he continued, "is by far the best idea I’ve ever had!”

His companion laughed and took another sip from his mug of ale before reaching for a steamed dumpling and popping it delicately into his mouth. “You talk like you discovered the place, you old fool. It’s been here – forever, apparently – just waiting to be found. But I’ll allow as it’s definitely the right place for the likes of us.”

Jadaar reached for another platter of fish; the banquet table seemed to be continually replenished, and he’d hate to see it go to waste. “All those nights of providing security in the Legerdemain's bar finally proved useful. There was so much talk of this Pandaria place – I knew we’d have to see it for ourselves.”

Asric nodded, too occupied with his meal to put up much more than a token argument. But old habits die hard, so he did add an observation. “We wouldn’t have made it here without my Black Market contact in Dalaran though. I knew cultivating a good relationship with Alchemist Cinesra would come in handy one day.”

Jadaar put down his mug long enough to quickly check the inside pocket of his elegant new Pandaren-style robe. It would never do to lose their remaining supply of the potion that Cinesra had prepared for their use; one never knew when it might be needed again. “You’re right about that. Who knew that a purveyor of poisons could also make a potion of illusion, let alone one long-lasting enough to let us get here from Stormwind on the Alliance airship.”

Asric’s laughter rang out, causing a few of the monk trainees to glance in their direction before returning to their own preoccupation with dinner. “I did make a passable draenei, didn’t I? More convincing than trying to pass you off as a blood elf, for certain.”

“You’re right. I obviously lacked the requisite look of haughty distain,” replied Jadaar dryly. “And I’ll agree you made a very handsome draenei. I think that young medic on the airship was quite taken with you.” 

“I looked just like you, jackass,” Asric snorted. “How handsome could I have been?” 

“You wound me, Asric. I thought you found me passably attractive… or is it only my rapier-sharp wit that keeps you by my side all these years?”

“Clearly not the latter, windbag. You must have other charms.” Asric gestured to a passing beer-fetcher for a refill. “I do think we did a fine job pulling off the passage from Stormwind though… are twins common among your people?”

It was Jadaar whose laughter rang out this time. “That human admiral was so full of herself and her anger that she wouldn’t have noticed a murloc in a Stormwind tabard, or cared. ‘Just go kill some Horde,’ she said. ‘This is _war_.’ I doubt she or anyone noticed that the twin draenei recruits disappeared into the Jade Forest immediately after parachuting off that skyship.”

Asric’s tone turned serious as he caught Jadaar’s gaze. “It is very fortunate for us that the people at this monastery are so welcoming to strangers. From what I can tell, those hozen and the jinyu – the fish people – aren’t on friendly terms in the outside world. So it apparently matters little if we’re draenei or blood elf or human or anything else. They have no idea of Horde or Alliance, nor do they seem to care.”

Jadaar lightly touched Asric’s hand as he replied. “You’re right, they seem to make no distinction. We’ve been welcomed warmly, given more than comfortable accommodations together… and a seemingly endless supply of food and drink. What’s not to like?”

Asric nodded toward the sparring ring beyond the banquet area. “A few hand to hand sparring matches and some martial arts exercises seem like a small price. At least there are no jousting lances involved.”

His partner winced at the mention of jousting. “And, by the Light, no bloody elekks. I’m here for the duration, assuming that’s agreeable to you?”

Asric’s eyebrow arched. “I thought you’d never ask if I wanted to stay as well, but since you do… yes, this seems like a place where we won’t need those extra potions of illusion. We can live here as ourselves, and not have to pose as anything but student monks.”

Jadaar nodded happily and raised his mug to his lover. “To us! We will be splendid monks, you’ll see.”

As they clinked mugs together, Asric returned the toast with a smile, “And to you, my old windbag.”

 


End file.
